Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010

Beginning of the end

Sanderson High's 'Last First Day' parade continues tradition

More than 100 car horns blared in the parking lot of Trinity Baptist Church before a torrent of highly decorated vehicles was unleashed onto Six Forks Road Wednesday morning.

Garlands and tinsel and Post-It notes fluttered in the breeze as the drivers hooted and honked and celebrated life as newly minted seniors at Sanderson High School.

It was the school's annual Last First Day of School Parade, seniors-only, and many were awake until the early morning Wednesday getting their vehicles ready.

"It's a big deal," said class president Anna Ellison, 17. "It pumps us up for the first day of school and gets us excited about being seniors."

Every year, Sanderson seniors decorate their cars and parade through the streets around the North Hills to celebrate their last time going back to high school.

Some students stuck to the classics for their car decorations - helium balloons and streamers, with their friends' names and "Honk if you love seniors!" soaped onto the windows.

Others got more elaborate. One car was covered in tin foil, another boasted an inflatable totem pole and a third had a life-sized Spider-man climbing on the roof. Ty Harris, 18, plastered his old Mercedes E320 with cardboard and painted it like a tank.

But Kat Holland, 17, won first prize. She turned her silver 2004 Camry into a vehicular tribute to the Air Force JROTC, complete with a cardboard cadet on top who saluted passersby via a cleverly placed string.

"It's something where you can go all-out," Holland said. "It's your chance to just kind of show off to everybody."